Page:Romance of History, Mexico.djvu/180

In his stately city on the eastern border of the great salt lake, Cacama, king of Tezcuco and nephew of Montezuma, brooded with dark suspicion on his uncle's prolonged stay in the quarters of the strangers. Surely he must be a captive! Never of his own free will would the emperor of the Aztecs consent to such a humiliating position. Cacama resolved to raise the great lords of the empire to rescue their monarch, even against his will, from the hands of the white men. Montezuma's brother, Cuitlahuac, the lord of Iztapalapan, his nephew Guatemozin, and the lord of the allied state of Tlacopan, readily consented to aid in the attempt.

Ever on the watch, Cortés ere long heard of these plots which were being hatched on the opposite shore of the lake, and strong in the complete sway he had acquired over the mind of Montezuma, he sent a haughty message to the young king of Tezcuco, warning him to beware of the people of the monarch of Spain, the ruler of all the world.

Equally haughty was Cacama's reply, "I acknowledge no such authority. I know nothing of